Byrd Spent Career ‘Unabashedly’ on Working Families’ Side
 |
||||
|
||||
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), 92, who died this morning after serving more than 58 years in Congress, “was unabashedly and unapologetically on the side of working families,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
“As Majority Leader, he helped lead the fight against the Republican filibuster of labor law reform in the 1970s. He tirelessly fought for health and safety laws that protected workers, opposed job- killing trade deals and when it came to standing up to the coal companies, a miner never had a stronger ally.”
Byrd was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1952 and won the first of his nine Senate terms in 1958.
Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts says Byrd’s strong championing of the 1969 Coal Mine Safety and Health Act that created the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) convinced President Nixon not to veto the bill.
Labor Department Launches Major Attack on Black Lung
 |
|
The Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) today launched a major initiative to end new cases of black lung among the nation’s coal miners. MSHA’s initiative includes more focused enforcement, targeted education and training, rulemaking and collaboration with stakeholders.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), cases of black lung are increasing among coal miners. Even younger miners are showing evidence of advanced and debilitating lung disease from excessive dust exposure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 10,000 miners have died from black lung over the past decade
“The Department of Labor is absolutely committed to ending black lung disease,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a video message today at the launch of the initiative in Beckley, W.Va.
Black Lung Disease on the Rise
In September 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) confirmed what doctors and occupational health specialists had been seeing when examining X-rays of coal miners’ lungs during the past several years. After years of decline, the rate of deadly disease had doubled and was appearing in younger and younger miners. (Click here to read our coverage of the NIOSH report.)
Black lung disease, also called pneumoconiosis, is caused by breathing in coal dust. It slowly robs victims of their ability to breath. At the time, health care experts were puzzled by the spike in black lung cases.
The basic facts suggest, as Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts said that September, either the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) was not enforcing the safety rule that set a limit on how much coal dust could be in a mine’s atmosphere (two milligrams per cubic centimeter) or the permissible level was too high, or a combination of the two.
